<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>That Death Process by TalesOfBelle</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26091340">That Death Process</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfBelle/pseuds/TalesOfBelle'>TalesOfBelle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Apex Legends (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>First Person Perspective, many last words</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:20:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>694</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26091340</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfBelle/pseuds/TalesOfBelle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dying is just a message the body sends to the mind when its had enough.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>That Death Process</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The human mind can be convinced to die. Like living is belief and pain and destruction can pull the wool away from someone's eyes. Like it's not the sheer force of the hover-rail's suspension that crushes my ribs into my lungs and pulverizes my skull - but it's the knowledge that I wouldn't be surviving any of this that really does me in. That's what a skinbag gets for running across train-cart rooftops in the rain, all for the sake of a guy trying to get away.</p><p>Got him, then I got mine. Slip. Crush. Bloody life before my eyes. The white light.</p><p>Blunt force trauma is persuasive, but it's like bringing a sledgehammer to the debate club. No one's gonna argue with the guy swinging it. But that's not the only way to convince a human mind to die. I drowned once. I tend not to have the best luck with vehicles, and looking back I didn't think twice about the way I tore the door off my target's coupé, He panicked, like skinbags do, and the vehicle careened from the high-way into a lake and the water pressure got to us both. Pinned us in the seats. He swallowed water and convulsed and I saw him go before I thought, <em>Right, I can't breathe either.</em></p><p>So, crash, cold pressure, suffocation. The simulation of blood vessels popping. The white light.</p><p>He's an image for you. You've died and it feels more like sleep and you wake up to see three skinbags all in clinical white holding stainless steel tools and one of them says, "Something's wrong." Yeah something's wrong, and that something is realizing he's been here before.</p><p>"Reinitialize death process," Someone says behind me and a button must be pushed somewhere because I understand what is happening. Invasive little thoughts that go far deeper than 'what'd happen if I jammed this fork into that guy's eye?' More insidious, more internal. My heart isn't beating and my lungs aren't getting any air and in this moment I'm not even sure if I have those human parts.</p><p>So the white light. Three figures. That death process.</p><p>Once I understood what I am it became easier, but always an inconvenience. When a garbage truck hit me at eighty miles per hour (someone saw a knife-wielding, blood-soaked simulacrum and decided to play hero) and my torso was parted from my legs, I told myself, <em>No,</em> and I told my lines of code, <em>Halt death process,</em> and dragging myself by my hands across the street I finished the job. See? It's easier now. I choose when the damage is too much and when to slip into a different mortal coil, I don't let something like a high calibre round to the chest, or a little bit of water damage, or vehicular manslaughter make that decision for me.</p><p>Not everyone has caught on.</p><p>There's a guy at the top of a high rise who needs to die, so the reaper pays him a visit. Scale the wall easily enough (I used to think I needed an oxygen tank and a rock climbing pick) and come in through the window. It takes a few attempts, I don't have much room or purchase to fling myself against the surface, but the skinbag's shocked enough that he only starts moving after the third crash. He has a shotgun with him because these guys don't see the sense in personal protection if it isn't compensating for something, and I indulge him that fight. Wrestling over it like it matters. Like if he blew my arm off I wouldn't just beat him to death with the limb.</p><p>He makes it to an elevator, the gun goes off between us and perforates the ceiling, the cable breaks, the brake-line goes with it. We have enough distance between us and the ground to hit terminal velocity.</p><p>See, he's furious because he knows he's going to die and he's smiling through it because he thinks he's taking me with him. I can fix that. I can put a little defeat back in those baby blues of his.</p><p>"One of us is going to wake up after this."</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>